Friday, December 18, 2015

The
whole world is in turmoil suffering the capitalist descent into barbarism. At
the same time, there is a great awakening of consciousness among the masses of
working people that we are all in the same sinking boat. Across the globe, we
are all facing the economic reality of austerity for us, and untold
accumulation of wealth for the ruling elite. Democratic rights are being
decimated. Police brutality and murder is rampant. And while the corporations
can kill, mutilate and rob with impunity, the poor are locked up for the crime
of being impoverished. We are reaching a tipping point both in our climate
crisis and our overwhelming social crisis of unending war, poverty and
criminalization of the poor.

The
only solution is world socialist revolution under the democratic control of the
whole working class and in defense of all life on Earth!

What does Chelsea want for her
28th birthday this week?

This Thursday, December 17th, is heroic WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning's 28th birthday--
the sixth year she'll have spent her birthday behind bars for exposing
war crimes, and other information that should never have been secret in
the first place.

Here are three important ways you can support Chelsea on her birthday:

Attorneys Nancy Hollander and
Vincent Ward are well into the process of preparing for Chelsea's first legal appeal next
year. The appeals process has the potential to take decades off Chelsea's 35 year prison sentence.Donate Today!

Currently, birthday actions are planned all over the world to celebrate
Chelsea Manning's Birthday from Dec 17th-Dec 19th. Join candlelight
vigils, card-writing meetups, and tabling events in London, Berlin,
Oakland, Boston, Bucharest, Vancouver, and even Chelsea's hometown in Oklahoma! Click here for a list of actions world-wide.

Super secret insider info: Not only are Chelsea Manning shirts and stuff already 50% off in our online store, if you use discount code "chelsea"
during check out, you'll get an additional 50% off. That is insane, so
please don't tell anyone else, as we can't afford for this news to get
out too broadly. Here's the link to the store, just for you Bonnie.

Chelsea honored in Advocate's 40 under 40!

"In blogs, tweets, and handwritten letters from prison, the former Army
intelligence specialist is still trying to change the world."

"I often hear and read that many people all over the world consider me a
‘whistleblower’ or a ‘heroine.’ This experience can be a little
intimidating at times," she tells The Advocate. "That’s an idea
that would be a lot to live up to! I don’t feel like I can live up to
the expectations of being a ‘heroine.’ I don’t have any special powers
or abilities like a comic book super hero. I actually feel a lot more
vulnerable than that. In fact, I am very vulnerable. I just try to be
myself, and that’s all I aspire to be.” Read more...

BLM
Sponsored by the Justice for Mario Woods Coalition. Endorsed by the ANSWER Coalition and many community organizations.

Friday, Dec. 18, 2pmPress Conference and Rally Stand with Arabs & Muslims Against Racist ViolenceSF City Hall (Polk St. steps)
In
recent weeks, we have witnessed a new wave of racist violence against
Arabs, Muslims and perceived Muslim communities in the San Francisco Bay
Area and across the country. Join us in challenging scapegoating and
xenophobia, and demonstrating our commitment to upholding the dignity of
all communities.

ANSWER SF · United States
This email was sent to caroleseligman@sbcglobal.net.
To stop receiving emails, click here.

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-->Holiday Call-In Day to the White House: Peace for Colombia! Free Simon TrinidadTuesday, December 22, 2015, 8AM to 5PM EasternCall President Obama at 202-456-1111

Say: “I want Peace for Colombia and to ask President Obama to free Simon Trinidad for the holidays! Trinidad belongs at the peace talks, not in solitary confinement at the Florence Colorado Supermax prison. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all!”

Peace for Colombia!The peace process between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government is moving forward in Havana, Cuba. Freeing Simon Trinidad to take part in peace talks would be a concrete action the Obama White House could take to show it supports the Colombian peace process. The holidays are a perfect time to make it happen.

We support peace with justice in Colombia as six points are being negotiated—land reform, drug crop eradication, transitional justice, political participation, end of armed conflict, and implementation. The outcome of these peace negotiations will determine the future of Colombia. It is important at this crucial time of peace talks to support the people’s movements in Colombia and demand the right-wing death squads stop killing leaders and activists.

Plan Colombia, the U.S. war of the past 15 years, brought poverty, misery and death to the Colombian people. It cost over $9 billion. With its fumigation of poor peasants crops and death squads targeting trade unionists, teachers, and activists, it is a massive failure.

Today the White House is supporting the peace talks, realizing Plan Colombia is a failure and that it cannot defeat the FARC. The Pentagon says the war will go past 2050 at current levels of fighting. Wall Street wants a peace process in Colombia because oil, mining, and mineral corporations want access to large no-go areas under the leadership of FARC or ELN.

Free Simon Trinidad for the holidays!

Simon Trinidad, also known as Ricardo Palmera, is a FARC negotiator and political prisoner of the U.S. government. Trinidad is being tortured in solitary confinement in the Florence, Colorado Supermax prison. A few months ago, on Sept. 21, thirty-five protesters marched and rallied in the mountains of Colorado chanting “Peace for Colombia, Free Simon Trinidad!” Now it is time to spread that message across the country and deliver it to the White House.

As the Colombian peace negotiations continue, the FARC says Simon Trinidad is needed in Havana. Trinidad played an important role in past negotiations and he represents the people’s movement history. For a lasting peace with justice in Colombia, ask President Obama to free Simon Trinidad now!

info@stopfbi.net

Committee to Stop FBI RepressionPO Box 14183Minneapolis, MN 55414

*********************************FREE RICARDO PALMERA

We demand the U.S. government free Colombian revolutionary Ricardo Palmera, a political leader and negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Professor Palmera has done nothing wrong. To the contrary, he consistently defends the sovereignty of his country, Colombia's independence, and the rights of the Colombian people.U.S. WAR IN COLOMBIA - PLAN COLOMBIAImposing "Plan Colombia", the U.S. government is intervening directly in Colombia's civil war -- arming, training, and commanding the Colombian Military and backing the corrupt government of a small wealthy elite. The Pentagon's Southern Command gives orders to Colombia's generals. President Bush has doubled U.S. military advisors to 800 and contract mercenaries to 600. The U.S. government's dirty war in Colombia costs over $5 billion in taxpayers' money. It goes to the Colombian Military and its death squads who torture and kill trade unionists, students, and peasants. The paramilitary death squads are part and parcel of the Colombian state, serving the interests of U.S. corporations like Occidental Oil, Chiquita Banana, Drummond Coal, and Coca-Cola. Plan Colombia is a plan for poverty, misery and death. It rains down terror upon Colombia's poor.

THE FARC

The imprisonment of Ricardo Palmera is a direct result of U.S. intervention in Colombia's civil war. The FARC formed in 1964 after Colombia's elites and their U.S. allies violently attacked an independent peasants' movement. Ricardo Palmera joined the FARC in 1989 after seeing most of his friends and comrades of the Patriotic Union political party murdered or exiled. The Colombian Military and their death squads murdered more than 4000 candidates, members, and elected officials of the Patriotic Union. Today, the FARC is a rebel army of 28,000 fighting for national liberation. It consists mainly of peasants and one-third of its fighters are women. However, FARC members come from all walks of life, including leaders like Professor Palmera. The FARC fight for social justice, seeking democratic social and economic change, organizing the poor to overthrow the rich and become the rulers of society. The FARC opposes the U.S. Empire -- where U.S. corporations steal the oil, coal, minerals, gems, and agricultural products that belong to the Colombian people. The FARC appeals to the American people to demand peace, not war, from Bush and other leaders.Ricardo Palmera's extradition, imprisonment, and trials are part of the U.S. Pentagon's counter-insurgency war. Palmera is the latest victim of the Bush Administration's so-called "War on Terror"; an unending war that respects no national boundaries and leads to repression and death around the world.Ricardo Palmera is held in solitary confinement -- no family, no friends, no reporters, not even his own Colombian lawyer can visit. However, by speaking the truth in court, FARC leader Palmera has consistently beaten the Bush administration. Palmera won a victory when the first trial ended in a hung jury. American jurors could not find Palmera guilty on the three "terrorism" charges and the two "kidnapping" charges. It was supposed to be a "slam-dunk" for the U.S. prosecutors, but turned into a big loss on their home turf.

Next the U.S. government re-tried Palmera on the same exact charges. However before the 2nd trial could even begin, Judge Hogan was caught cheating with U.S. prosecutor Ken Kohl and had to step down, to recuse himself. Hogan's replacement, Judge Lamberth refused to allow Palmera any witnesses. The U.S. prosecutor had dozens of witnesses -- paid informants, lying convicted drug runners, and corrupt Colombian government officials. At the end of the 2nd trial, the jury could not find Palmera guilty of "terrorism" charges or the actual kidnapping charge related to three U.S. military contractors captured and held by the FARC. Unfortunately, based upon the FARC capturing its enemies in combat, the jury convicted Palmera of "belonging to a conspiracy to kidnap". Judge Lamberth added every year of time the U.S. Prosecutor asked for, producing a 60-year sentence while emphasizing his "judicial independence and impartiality". At his sentencing Ricardo Palmera gave a moving and heroic speech, defending himself and his principles, the FARC and its leadership, and the revolution of the Colombian people. Ricardo Palmera's speech will one day appear in history books across Latin America.The third and fourth trials of Ricardo Palmera involved "drug" charges, claiming Professor Palmera is part of a vast conspiracy to import cocaine to the U.S. This claim is like the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. It is the big lie with no evidence. The FARC are simply not involved in the production or trafficking of drugs. This time, seven American jurors declared Ricardo Palmera "not guilty". Another hung jury, another mistrial, but the U.S. Prosecutor put Ricardo Palmera on trial again. For the same charges! Another million-dollar trial with no evidence, only paid informants and corrupt government officials. In this fourth trial, Palmera won another hung jury and the U.S. State Department finally gave up and requested that the charges be dropped.FREE RICARDO PALMERA-- Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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When Drone Whistleblowers are Under Attack,

What Do We Do?

STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!

We honor Stephan, Michael, Brandon and Cian!

These
four former ex-drone pilots have courageously spoken out publicly
against the U.S. drone assassination program. They have not been
charged with any crime, yet the U.S. government is retaliating against
these truth-tellers by freezing all of their bank and credit card
accounts. WE MUST BACK THEM UP!
Listen to them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28

PLEASE HELP THEM:

1. Sign up on this support network:www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/

**************************************************************
Statement of Support for Drone Whistleblowers
(Code Pink Women for Peace: East Bay, Golden Gate, and S.F. Chapters 11.28.15)

Code
Pink Women for Peace support the very courageous actions of four former
US drone operators, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland,
and Stephan Lewis, who have come under increasing attack for disclosing
information about “widespread corruption and institutionalized
indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the drone
program.” As truth tellers, they stated in a public letter to President
Obama that the killing of innocent civilians has been one of the most
“devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the
world.”* These public disclosures come only after repeated attempts to
work privately within official channels failed.

Despite
the fact that none of the four has been charged with criminal activity,
all had their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. This retaliatory
response by our government is consistent with the extrajudicial nature
of US drone strikes.

We must support these former drone
operators who have taken great risks to stop the drone killing. Write
or call your US Senators, your US Representatives, President Barack
Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan
demanding that Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and
Stephan Lewis be applauded, not punished, for revealing the criminal and
extrajudicial nature of drone strikes that has led to so many civilian
deaths.

For more information on the 4 Drone Whistleblowers:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
(Must see Democracy Now interview with the 4 drone operators)

Save Ashraf Fayadh

Palestinian poet sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.

Ashraf
Fayadh, Palestinian refugee poet and artist living in Saudi Arabia, has
been sentenced to death by a Saudi court, on charges of apostasy or
abandoning his faith in Islam. The charges appear to be based on his
poetry and writing and also maybe a form of retaliation for posting an
online video showing Saudi religious police lashing a man in public.

Fayadh
is a Palestinian refugee who was born in Saudi Arabia and has become a
leading member of the young Saudi art scene. He was arrested in January
2014, his identity documents confiscated, and held for a lengthy period
without charge. He was then sentenced to four years in prison and 800
lashes; after he appealed; he was re-tried last month and sentenced to
death. He did not have legal representation.

Fayadh is being
sentenced to death after having been jailed for more than 22 months in
the Saudi city of Abha without clear legal charges beyond “insulting the
Godly self” and having “ideas that do not suit the Saudi society.”
These charges are based on the complaint of a reader’s interpretation of
Fayadh's 2008 poetry collection titled, Instructions Within.

“According
to Fayadh’s friends, when the police failed to prove that his poetry
was atheist propaganda, they began berating him for smoking and having
long hair,” reported the Guardian. Fayadh said his poetry book,
Instructions Within, is “just about me being [a] Palestinian
refugee…about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious
extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God.”

This
is not the first time that Saudi authorities have arrested Ashraf
Fayadh. The poet was detained before after a Saudi citizen filed a
complaint with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the
Prevention of Vice accusing Fayadh of having “misguided and misguiding
thoughts.” Fayadh was bailed out of jail at the time, only to get
arrested again. According to sources close to Fayadh, the poet has been
denied both visitation and legal representation rights.

Amnesty
international stated, “We condemn these acts of intimidation targeting
Ashraf Fayadh as part of a wider campaign inciting hate against writers
and using Islam to justify oppression and to crush free speech. We
express our solidarity with Fayadh, hoping to increase support for the
poet as well as pressure to release him. Our efforts should come
together to ensure the proliferation of free speech and personal
freedoms. We specifically call on Saudi intellectuals to express
solidarity with Fayadh against Takfiris’ intimidation practices meant to
silence poets, writers, and artists like him. Let the flag of
creativity fly free and remain innovative. Remaining silent towards
Fayadh’s detention is an insult to knowledge, literature, culture, and
thought as well as to freedom and human rights.”

Samidoun
Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins the call for the immediate
freedom of Ashraf Fayadh. His imprisonment, persecution and death
sentence by the Saudi regime reflects the deeply reactionary and
far-right role played by the Saudi regime in the region—alongside its
close imperial partners in the United States, Canada and Europe—that
threatens Palestinian and Arab culture, life, and movements and works to
block and suppress any struggle for liberation.

2.
Protest at the Saudi Embassy in your area for freedom for Ashraf
Fayadh. Print signs and materials, and gather outside the Saudi embassy
with Palestine rights activists, artists and others to demand his
freedom. See the list of Saudi embassies here: http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/saudi-arabia

3.
Contact your government officials. The Saudi regime is a close partner
of the United States, Canadian and various European governments. Demand
that your government pressure the Saudi regime to release Fayadh. In
Canada, Call the office of the Foreign Minister, Stéphane Dion, at
613-996-5789 and demand Canada pressure Saudi Arabia to release Fayadh,
or email: stephane.dion@parl.gc.ca.
In the U.S., call the White House (202-456-1111) and the U.S. State
Department (202-647-9572); demand the U.S. pressure Saudi Arabia to
release Fayadh. In the EU, contact your Member of the European
Parliament—you can find your MEP here:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

Please
also write letters, Facebook posts, emails or send Facebook messages to
your local politicians, newspapers and friends to publicize this dire
case and spread the information about the situation of Ashraf Fayadh.

Urge
Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has
always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which
he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting
opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute
an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin
Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful
conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial
misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case.
Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

"The
State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge
William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

In
1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house
guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in
an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a
noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the
venue of his preliminary hearing.

Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

Following
his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this
politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

In
2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime
that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the
state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin
Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

Kevin
Cooper's case will be the subject of a new episode of CNN's "Death Row
Stories" airing on Sunday, July 26 at 7 p.m. PDT. The program will be
repeated at 10 p.m. PDT. The episode, created by executive producers
Robert Redford and Alex Gibney, will explore how Kevin Cooper was framed
by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and District
Attorney.Viewers on the east coast can see the program at 10 p.m. EDT
and it will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. EDT on July 27. Viewers in the
Central Time zone can see it at 9 p.m. and midnight CDT. Viewers in the
Mountain Time zone can see it at 8 p.m. and ll p.m MDT. It will be
aired on CNN again during the following week and will also be able to
be viewed on CNN's "Death Row Stories" website.

Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up - from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org
Kevin
Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and
sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in
Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter
Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year
old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

Convicted
in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin
Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He
has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a
dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The
State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d
581.

There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:


The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the
murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a
hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could
a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four
weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were
adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near
their bedsides?

 The sole surviving victim of the
murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the
murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated
this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr.
Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said
"that's not the man who did it."

 Josh Ryen's
description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were
driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported
seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of
the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.


These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees
and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men
enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom
were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.


The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman
who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's
department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left
blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also
reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a
tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She
also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one
recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in
the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister
saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could
have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

Lacking
a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution
claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a
minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But
the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the
driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The
prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and
credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder
scene.

The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days
before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had
been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to
convict.

The evidence the prosecution presented at
trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been
discredited… (Continue reading this document at:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

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For Immediate Release – Thursday, October 29, 2015

Solitary Prisoners' Lawyers Slam CDCR for Sleep Deprivation

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

SAN
FRANCISCO – Yesterday, lawyers for prisoners in the class action case
Ashker v. Brown submitted a letter condemning Pelican Bay prison
guards' "wellness checks," which have widely been viewed as sleep
deprivation. The letter was submitted to United States Magistrate Judge
Nandor Vadas, and calls on the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to put an end to the checks.

Last
month, prisoners achieved a historic victory in the settlement of
Ashker v. Brown where the indefinite long term solitary confinement was
effectively ended in California, with Magistrate Judge Vadas currently
monitoring implementation of the settlement terms.

The
guards at Pelican bay Security Housing Units have been conducting
disruptive cell checks every 30 minutes around the clock for three
months, causing prisoners widespread sleep disruption. The process is
loud and according to prisoners, "the method and noise from the checks
is torture."

Attorneys representing Pelican Bay SHU
prisoners have just completed extensive interviews with prisoners who
demand that "the every 30-minute checks have to be stopped or people
are going to get sick or worse." In addition, they report that regular
prison programs have been negatively impacted.

"To
sleep is a fundamental human right," said Anne Weills, a member of the
prisoners' legal team and one of the attorneys who conducted the
interviews with prisoners in Pelican Bay. "To take away such a basic
human right amounts to severe torture, adding to the already torturous
conditions of being in solitary confinement."

Most
prisoners report low energy, exhaustion and fatigue. Most state that
they have trouble concentrating. They try to read, but they nod off
and/or can't remember what they have read. Their writing is much slower
("I can't think to write"), and describe the constant welfare checks as
having a negative impact on their mental state.

While
this recent attorney survey was specifically focusing on sleep
deprivation and its effects, prisoners volunteered information about
the negative impact of these frequent checks: yard policy and practice
has reduced access to recreation, access to showers has been reduced,
programs and meals are being delayed, and property for those newly
transferred to Pelican Bay is still being delayed and withheld.

Sleep
deprivation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners and
their attorneys are demanding that these checks be halted.

Free Albert Woodfox!

On
June 8, 2015 a federal judge granted Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox
unconditional release. Albert's conviction had already been overturned
three times - most recently in 2013 - yet every time the state has
appealed.

Today, Albert is still behind
bars after spending four decades in cruel, unjust solitary confinement.
He believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert
King, were first placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their
activism. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party.
Together, they came to be known as the Angola 3.

It is
time for the State of Louisiana to stop standing in the way of justice.
Call on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to ensure Albert's cruel and
unjust confinement is not his legacy. Learn more

Amnesty for all those arrested demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Amnesty for ALL those arresteddemanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Sign and distribute the petition to drop the charges!Spread this effort with #Amnesty4Baltimore

"A riot is the language of the unheard" — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An
estimated 300 people have been arrested in Baltimore in the last two
weeks. Many have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in
the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested
include journalists, medics and legal observers.

One
individual arrested for property destruction of a police vehicle is
now facing life in prison and is being held on $500,000 bail. That's
$150,000 more than the officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray.

The legal system has made it clear that they care more about
broken windows than broken necks; more about a CVS than the lives of
Baltimore's Black residents.

They showed no hesitation in
arresting Baltimore's protesters and rebels, and sending in the
National Guard, but took 19 days to put a single one of the killer cops
in handcuffs. This was the outrageous double standard that led to the
Baltimore Uprising.

I
stand in solidarity with those in Baltimore who are demanding that all
charges be dropped against those who rose up against racism, police
brutality, oppressive social conditions and delay of justice in the case
of Freddie Gray. The whole world now recognizes that were it not for
this powerful grassroots movement, in all its forms, there would be no
indictment.

It is an outrage that peaceful
protesters have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in
the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested
include journalists and legal observers.

Even the youth
who are charged with property destruction and looting should be given
an amnesty. There is no reason a teenager -- provoked by racists and
justifiably angry -- should be facing life in prison for breaking the
windows of a police car.

The City of Baltimore should
work to rectify the conditions that led to this Uprising, rather than
criminalizing those who took action in response to those conditions.
Drop the charges now!

Sincerely,
[add your name below]

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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

Sign the Petition:

http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos

Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:

Americans
now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that
money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing
burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

URGENT ALERT

MAJOR TILLERY IN

HOSPITAL!

Sometime
yesterday Major Tillery, a 65 year-old man, was rushed to the hospital
from SCI Frackville. Since hearing this yesterday evening through the
prison grapevine, family and attorney have tried to learn more.

Today,
the only thing we have been told by Superintendent Brenda Tritt is
that this was "a routine admission" and Major is "receiving the
appropriate medical attention." Nothing more to to Major Tillery's
daughter, Kamilah Iddeen--not the hospital, the reason for rushing
Major to the hospital, no agreement for family and legal visits.
Major
Tillery has liver disease and a liver shunt, arthritis with chronic
back and hip pain, and a festering skin rash and open sores. Major
Tillery has filed grievance after grievance objecting to the lack of
medical treatment and refusal to renew needed medical devices.

Major
Tillery has been imprisoned for 30 years, 25 in the hole and in the
most severe super max prisons in the country. For prison officials his
crime is his advocacy for other prisoners and leadership capabilities,
including challenging abusive prison conditions and inadequate medical
treatment. He has been subject to retaliation by prison authorities
since he began his successful legal effort to stop the overcrowding and
curb the inhumane conditions in SCI Pittsburgh over 25 years ago. See,
Tillery v. Owens (1990)

In early 2015, Major
complained about the spreading skin disease at SCI Mahanoy, where he
was then imprisoned. He stood up for Mumia Abu-Jamal and other
prisoners who were suffering from this. For his acts of solidarity,
Major Tillery was transferred to SCI Frackville and then put in the
hole on falsified charges. After four months with limited food rations,
deprived of commissary, contact visits and allowed less than one-hour a
day of exercise, Major was released into general population. This was
two months less than his prison sentence of six months in the hole –
the prison's response to an international campaign for Major!

Now
Major is in the hospital. He is not being allowed contact with his
family or attorney. They are not being given any real information on
his condition.

Call prison officials and demand:
Visits
with Major Tillery by his family and lawyer. Full medical information
and treatment should be provided to his family and lawyer.
Stop
the Retaliation Against Major Tillery. He should be exonerated for the
false charges of drug possession and this misconduct removed from his
record.
Transfer Major Tillery from SCI Frackville back to SCI
Mahanoy or to another facility in eastern Pennsylvania to remain near
his family.

Support Mumia in Court on Dec. 18Demand that Mumia and 10,000 other PA Prisoners Receive Lifesaving HCV Treatment

Your
support is needed once again for renowned political prisoner Mumia
Abu-Jamal, this time to demand immediate treatment for the hepatitis C
virus (HCV).

In the wake of thousands of signed petitions, phone
calls, emails plus meetings, street actions and pressure from
sympathetic state officials, Federal Court Judge Robert Mariani has
ordered a full evidentiary hearing on Friday, Dec. 18 to determine if
the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) must provide, as
Abu-Jamal's legal team requests, the new, direct-acting, anti-viral
medication with a 95 percent cure rate for HCV .

The DOC
currently has no standard of care for treating prisoners with HCV.
Prison authorities willfully ignored Mumia's health crisis until
supporters initiated a campaign which eventually revealed medical proof
that his ailments stem from untreated HCV he contacted via a blood
transfusion when he was shot by police 34 years ago. The DOC is denying
the lifesaving treatment "until the final stages of the condition" -
when it would be too late to save Mumia's life!

Abu-Jamal's legal
team will make a strong case during the hearing on why Mumia and the
other 10,000 HCV-infected prisoners in Pennsylvania need immediate
treatment. Most leading hep C specialists and national HCV
organizations now recommend immediate treatment with this drug.
Abu-Jamal will testify via videoconferencing - the first time in decades
he will be given the opportunity to testify in court If he is
successful in winning the new hep C treatment, it will set a precedent
that can potentially help infected prisoners throughout Pennsylvania and
other states.

Statistics show that HCV, if left untreated, is
spread when prisoners return home, creating a public health crisis which
has a disproportionate impact on people of color and impoverished
communities who are also impacted negatively by the outrageously high
prices charged by Gilead Sciences for this lifesaving medicine.

Join
activists from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York City and other East
Coast cities in a rally outside the courthouse in Scranton and perhaps
witness the court proceedings inside (seating is very limited). Your
participation on Dec. 18 can prove once again that people's power can
successfully force the capitalist state to consent to the right to
proper health care for Abu-Jamal and all prisoners with HCV.

International
Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Coalition (NYC), Educators for Mumia, Campaign to Bring Mumia Home,
International Action Center and Mundo Obrero-Workers World Party are all
organizing to attend.

Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
Updates from the New "Team Free Lorenzo Johnson":
Thank
you all for your relentless effort in the fight against wrongful
convictions and your determination to stand behind Lorenzo.

To
garner even more support for Lorenzo Johnson, we have been hard at
work updating the website and developing an even more formidable and
dedicated team. Please take a moment to visit the new site here.

During
the month of July, Lorenzo wrote two new articles for The Huffington
Post titled "When Prosecutors Deny Justice for the Innocent," and "Hurry
Up and Wait for Justice: The Struggle of Innocent Prisoners." In these
articles, Lorenzo discusses the flaws in the criminal justice system,
which he deems is a "serious problem in this country."

Lastly, Lorenzo has a message to you all.

A Letter from Lorenzo:

July 23, 2015
Dauphin County Prison
Harrisburg, PA

Dear Supporters,

I
hope all is well with everyone and your families. As for myself, I'm
still on my journey in pursuit of my vindication. Sorry for my website
being shut down for a couple of weeks. It was being transferred to a new
provider and management. I'm back and will do my best to keep
everything up to speed with what's taking place.

I
would like to thank ALL of my loyal supporters in the U.S. and in the
MANY different counties that have signed on to support my innocence.
Thanks for all of the letters, emails, photos, etc. Like I always say, I
get energy to carry on and inspiration hearing form you, please stay
engaged in my struggle.

As of this moment, nothing has
changed, but – the continued delay tactics are constantly being used by
my prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos. With the
mounting of evidence that supports my innocence and police and
prosecution misconduct claims that is steadily piling up, you would
think that I would be having a couple of evidentiary hearings on my
actual innocence appeal that have been pending since August 5, 2013.

At
the time of this writing, I've been moved from SCI-Mahanoy to Dauphin
County Prison and locked down for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day. In the
20 minutes I get to come out, I get to take a shower and make a short
call. Prosecutor Stoycos had me moved so I can be a witness in his
attempt to have my codefendant Corey Walker's attorney removed from
representing him. How dare he call into question an attorney who is
seeking justice for her client, when prosecutor Stoycos himself violated
multiple constitutional rights of mine and Mr. Walker, that led to us
being in prison for 20 years and counting.

Prosecutor
Stoycos is continuously abusing his power and his endless resources he
has at his disposal. He is not tough on crime, he's tough on Innocent
Prisoners. Prosecutor Stoycos is doing everything in his power to
prevent justice from taking place. I encourage everyone to continue to
speak out against my nightmare, invite others to get involved by going
to my website and signing my Freedom Petition and whatever else they're
willing to do.

On a positive note, I just enrolled in
warehouse management trade and started on July 13th. Unfortunately,
you're only allowed to miss a couple of days and Prosecutor Stoycos had
me temporarily transferred on July 14th … It's extremely hard on Lifers
to get into these trades due to the fact that Lifers are placed at the
back of the list of ALL vocational classes. I try to further my
education every chance I get, so when I do come home, I will be
certified in different work.

The month of the hearing
has come and left, without me being brought to the courthouse … I'm one
of MANY innocent prisoners who endures this non-stop madness in our
pursuit of Justice and Freedom. Now that my webpage is almost caught up
to speed, I promise prompt updates and as everyone knows that contacted
me directly, I personally reply to those in the states and out of the
country. For those who can make a financial contribution, everything
counts. Take care and let's continue to fight until we achieve Freedom,
Justice, and Equality for all innocent prisoners.

"The Pain Within"

Free the Innocent
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson

[Note: Lorenzo has since been transferred back to SCI Mahanoy and can be reached at his usual address.]

Thank
you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit the
new website and contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!

On
December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading
African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an
all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly
altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton
Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge's approval,
repeatedly told the jury "you don't need evidence to convict Mr.
Pinkney." And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV.
PINKNEY TO THE 'ALTERED' PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led
away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney's appeal.

Checks
can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community
Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney. Mail
them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI
49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search "Pinkney").

I
am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting
in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike
Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in
prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make
an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...)
ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I
arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred
people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people
recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the
prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2
days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on
the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this
racist."

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan
political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist
injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly
changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor
Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial
evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the
purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County
activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
(BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the
corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor,
Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an "Occupy the
PGA [Professional Golfers' Association of America]" demonstration
against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack
Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The
course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the
city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County
officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor
Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local
corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton
Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan
cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

The
Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent
charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist
white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black
city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian
ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper
column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do
this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

New Action--write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning's clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.

Please
write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks'
whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea
Manning's release from military prison.

It is
important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that
Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be
reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner,
imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely
that any of these individuals would independently move to release
Manning, a reduction in Manning's outrageous 35-year prison sentence is
a possibility at this stage.

The
letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and
especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning's
sentence is reduced. The letter should NOT be anti-military as this
will be unlikely to help.

A suggested message:
"Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military
regulations in the course of being true to her conscience. I urge you
to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning's sentence to time
served." Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the
details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.

Consider
composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this
yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).

A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above

This
clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning's upcoming appeal
before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning's
new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the
prosecution's—and the trial judge's—misconduct during last year's trial
at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea's legal fees at this critical stage!

Indianapolis
police officers shot and killed a man on Saturday after he lunged at an
officer with a knife following an unsuccessful effort to subdue him
using nonlethal force, the department said in a statement.

The
killing of the man, whose identity had not been released, was met with
anger by some residents in the neighborhood, who briefly confronted
police officers and smashed the windshield of a police car, The Indianapolis Star reported.

The
statement from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said
officers responding to a report of a suicidal person shortly before
11:30 a.m. Saturday found a knife-wielding man who ignored orders to
drop his weapon.

They used a Taser
but it “appeared to have no effect on him,” according to the statement.
An officer then tackled the man but was unable to wrestle the knife
from his hands. At that point, two officers fired at the man. Emergency
medical workers pronounced him dead at the scene.

People
who had gathered near where the shooting took place, which appeared in a
cellphone video shot by a bystander to be a residential neighborhood,
responded angrily to the shooting, cursing and screaming at police
officers and smashing the windshield of a police car after a brief
confrontation.

Some people in the crowd appeared to have known the man.

“He had a mental illness,” one person in the crowd shouted, according to The Star.

The
police department said the officers involved in Saturday’s shooting had
been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

Lt.
Richard Riddle, a spokesman for the police department, defended the
officers’ decision to use lethal force, saying they “had no other
choice.”

“We have homicides, we have stabbings, we have
serious violent offenses that occur daily in this city via the use of a
knife,” Lieutenant Riddle said at a news conference. “So a knife is
deemed to be a deadly weapon in any vernacular and our officers were
confronted with an individual who was armed with a knife and who refused
to drop it.”

He estimated there had been 20 officer-involved shootings in the city so far in 2015, including nine or 10 fatalities.

Police
in Southern California are facing scrutiny after dramatic video footage
emerged that appears to show two white officers repeatedly shooting a
black man as he attempted to crawl away from them.

The Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Office held a press conference on Sunday
afternoon to address the video and shooting incident, which occurred
Saturday morning outside a gas station in Lynwood, about 15 miles south
of downtown Los Angeles. The sheriff's office identified the victim as
Nicholas Robertson, 28, from Compton. He was reportedly a father of
three.

The deputies involved in the shooting initially said that
Robertson was armed and refused to drop his weapon, but video recorded
by a bystander in a building across the street seems to contradict those
claims. It appears to show two officers standing a short distance away
from Robertson as he walks away from them with his back turned. The
officers suddenly open fire and continue shooting as Robertson falls to
the ground and attempts to crawl away.

The footage has prompted
outrage in a city that is already sore from a number of controversial
officer-involved shootings over the last two years. Crowds of protesters
gathered at the site of the incident on Saturday night.

Ahead of Sunday's press conference on the shooting, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell urged the public to avoid drawing conclusions about the incident based on what the video shows.

"In
this modern age of cellphone video and instant analysis on the
Internet, I would ask that we keep in mind that a thorough and
comprehensive investigation is detailed and time-intensive," McDonnell
said in a statement "It will involve not just one source of information
but numerous sources, potentially including multiple videos, physical
evidence and eyewitness accounts."

Speaking at Sunday's press
conference, Captain Steve Katz of the sheriff's office said that
deputies received numerous reports before 11am on Saturday of an
individual toting a handgun in the vicinity of a busy intersection in
Lynwood, and that shots were fired in the area around that time. Katz
shared video footage and photographs from a business overlooking the
intersection by the gas station that he said showed Robertson "behaving
erratically" and carrying a handgun.

Katz said Robertson was
"yelling out expletives," and that a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun
was found at the scene of the incident. It wasn't loaded, Katz said, but
Robertson had additional rounds on his person. Katz said they had no
evidence that Robertson fired at police deputies, but that they were
certain it had been fired "multiple times" earlier in the day. The
police official suggested a marital dispute or a "drug nexus" had made
Robertson agitated.

Katz said the deputies fired 15 and 16 shots,
respectively, during the encounter. He said the number of shots wasn't
necessarily unusual, but that it would be evaluated as part of the
investigation into the incident. He also described one of the officers
involved as veteran, but when pressed on how he defined "veteran," he
acknowledged the man had only been in the field for a year. Both
officers involved will be placed on administrative leave pending the
outcome of the investigation.

The sheriff's office stressed
their understanding of the "significant community concern" and "strong
emotions" about the shooting, underscoring the fact that the
investigation is in very early stages. Katz pleaded for patience, and
said that "facts may change" as the investigation proceeds.

MIAMI — Some of the thorniest conversations in the long road toward full relations between Cuba and the United States have only just begun in recent days: The two sides are sitting down for the first time to discuss the American properties Cuba
confiscated decades ago.The very idea of compensation for property and
businesses seized in the wake of the Cuban revolution sent a quiver of
excitement down the backs of the thousands of people who lost everything from sugar mills to family homes to oil refineries.

People started dusting off yellowing deeds. Lawyers were called.

But what if Cuba approaches these historic talks with a rather different unsettled claim in mind?

In
1999, a Cuban court found the United States government liable for
deaths and damages caused by America’s “aggressive policies” against the
island — namely, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the trade embargo
prohibiting American citizens and companies from doing business in
Cuba.Arguing that the United States had strangled Cuba’s economy and
caused irreparable harm, the court ordered the United States to pay $181
billion in damages.

So while legal representatives from the
State Department flew to Havana last week to make the case for American
claims against Cuba, the Cubans made a presentation of their own.

“We
know that they believe that they have billions of dollars of claims
relating to human damage and economic damage resulting from the
embargo,” said a State Department official who briefed reporters on the
condition that she not be named. “And I think we can expect that we will
hear more about that as we proceed with these discussions.”

The
official would not say whether the Cubans demanded an exact figure in
reparations. It is unclear how the Cuban government arrived at any of
the many damage estimates bandied about.

At the United Nations
this year, Cuba said it was owed about $121 billion. The Cuban
government-run news media says the amount owed is $833.75 billion.

“This
is an extremely complicated subject,” Josefina Vidal, head of United
States affairs in the Cuban Foreign Ministry, told The Associated Press
after the first meeting of the bilateral commission this fall. “I
imagine that when the two countries begin to meet, one of the first
things we will have to do is to clarify all the accounts.”

(She noted that the Cuban court verdict was 15 years old, suggesting there were fresh numbers to crunch.)

The
State Department official said last week’s meeting was both preliminary
and professional, but she emphasized that the issue of compensation for
the confiscated properties was crucial. More meetings are expected in
the coming months.

“This meeting is the first step in a complex
process that may take some time, but the United States views the
resolution of outstanding claims as a top priority for normalization,”
the American official said.

In Havana, the American delegation
detailed how the Foreign Settlement Claims Commission arrived at the
$1.9 billion in 5,913 certified American claims, which are estimated to be worth $8 billion with interest.
Most of the money is owed to American companies, experts say. The
claims do not include any from the many thousands of Cubans who lost
property before leaving the island and becoming American citizens.

The
State Department also laid out the 10 state and federal court judgments
American courts have levied against the Cuban government, totaling
another $2 billion or so, as well as “some claims of the U.S. government
against Cuba,” the official said.

Experts said that American claimants should not be too worried about Cuba’s daunting counter-demands.

“Those
are the opening positions,” said Richard E. Feinberg, a Latin America
adviser during the Clinton administration who published a study on the claims issue this month for the Brookings Institution. “This is a negotiation.”

Mr.
Feinberg noted that Cuban officials should be motivated to make a deal
because they had no doubt paid close attention to the legislative elections last weekend in Venezuela, where the leftist government that keeps Cuba afloat financially took a beating at the polls for the first time in 17 years.

Cuba
needs the United States to lift the trade embargo, and the best way to
get that done is by settling the property claims, he said. The embargo
was put in place in 1962 after a dispute that began precisely because
Fidel Castro expropriated American oil companies that had refused to
process Russian crude.

With an end to Venezuela’s financial aid a greater possibility, Cuba needs a new revenue stream. Soon.

“The fuse has been lit,” Mr. Feinberg said. “Time is running out.”

Mauricio
J. Tamargo, a Washington lawyer who chaired the Foreign Settlement
Claims Commission for eight years, said the two sides must come up with a
bargain that is fair, or Congress would not vote to lift the embargo.

The
claims have also been a stumbling block to re-establishing direct air
travel between the two countries, because Cuba fears its planes could be
seized to satisfy court judgments, Mr. Feinberg said.

Should the talks advance, there are plenty of models negotiators could look at.

Past
examples of such settlements have varied considerably, with claimants
receiving as little as 10 percent of their claims, with no interest.
When the Berlin Wall fell, American claimants got 100 percent of the value of their properties, plus interest.

In
Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
confiscated properties were sometimes returned to their original owners.

Poland,
Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania offered compensation, “usually
inadequate, and often symbolic and not necessarily monetary,” said
Nicolás J. Gutiérrez, a consultant in Miami who has worked on the issue
for decades after his family lost a $35 million empire in Cuba.

The
Cuban case is trickier: Not only does the government have its own
counterclaim, but the people who did the confiscating are still in
power.

In that sense, the Cuba’s situation is more parallel with Vietnam and China.

In
1979, China agreed to pay $80 million to a China Claims Fund, which
allowed American claimants 39 percent of the value of their lost
properties, according to the Brookings study. Vietnam, to normalize
relations with the United States, agreed in 1995 to apply its assets
frozen by the United States government to pay claimants 100 percent of
the principal and 80 percent of the interest they were owed.

Mr.
Gutiérrez believes the claims should have been settled before the
embassies were opened. He now fears that the two lists of demands are so
lopsided that the American claimants will walk away with nothing.

The
State Department negotiates on behalf of American claimants and does
not have to seek their approval before reaching an accord.

“You
can almost imagine Obama negotiators saying: ‘Look, we got them to drop
the fantasy $120 billion!’” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “We drop the $8 billion,
and no one gets anything.”

The George W. Bush administration
paid the Creighton University School of Law in Nebraska $375,000 to come
up with proposals. The university recommended creating a special
tribunal — as President Jimmy Carter did in Iran. Cuba could pay with
development rights, tax incentives encouraging foreign investment in
Cuba, or in a lump settlement, which could be financed by the
international community, said Michael J. Kelly, who co-wrote the report.

Mr. Kelly said the Cuban counterclaim for reparations should not be taken seriously.

“Those claims are not supported by international law,” he said in an email. “The property claims are.”

More
are sure to surface. Already, a Tampa resident, Gary Rapoport, has
publicly inquired about compensation for the Riviera, a 352-room
waterfront hotel in Havana that was inaugurated in 1957 by Ginger
Rogers. It was owned by Mr. Rapoport’s grandfather, Meyer Lansky, an
organized crime figure.

In an interview with The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the mobster’s grandson, put it like this: “Cuba owes my family money.”

Investigators
have not yet found any evidence to show that an “illegal or terrorist
act” brought down the Russian jetliner that crashed on the Sinai
Peninsula on Oct. 31, but they are still looking, Egypt's chief investigator said in a statement released Monday.

Russia
has said an explosive device was detonated on the airplane, and the
Sinai branch of the Islamic State militant group has claimed
responsibility for the disaster. All 224 people on board the plane were
killed, most of them vacationing Russians who were flying home to St.
Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.

The crash
led Russia to suspend all flights to and from Egypt, dealing a heavy
blow to the country’s tourism industry, a vital part of its economy.

Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the investigatory committee looking into the disaster,
said in a vaguely worded statement on Monday that the panel had
completed a preliminary report on Sunday and that it was “continuing its
work.”He said that the search for wreckage extended more than 16
kilometers, about 10 miles, from the main crash site, and that all
parties to the investigation, including Russian aviation experts and the
company that insured the plane, had the chance to examine the wreckage.

Mr.
Muqaddam said the committee was arranging with the Egyptian air force
to move the wreckage to a safe location in Cairo for further study. He
said the committee had already analyzed the plane’s 38 computers and two
engine computers, but was still combing through technical data about
the plane and its repair history.

A spokesman for the Russian
government, Dmitry Peskov, did not comment directly on the Egyptian
statement, but reminded reporters that Russian experts had already
concluded that the crash “was a terrorist action.”

The aircraft, an Airbus
A321-200 operated by Metrojet, was manufactured in 1997 and owned by an
Irish leasing company. The technical investigation of the crash
includes experts from Egypt, Russia, France (where Airbus is based) and
Ireland.

The Egyptian authorities are also investigating whether
security had been compromised at the Sharm el Sheikh airport. That
investigation has focused on baggage handlers, their security
supervisors and workers involved in aircraft catering, security
officials have said.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) In Powerful Warning to City Officials, Chicago Teachers Vote for Mass Strike
By Nadia Prupis

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) on Monday voted overwhelmingly
to authorize a strike if contract disputes are not resolved, paving the
way for members' second mass walkout since 2012 as city officials
threaten further cuts and layoffs.

"Chicago Teachers Union
members do not want to strike, but we do demand that you listen to us,"
said CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey. "Do not cut our schools, do not
lay off educators or balance the budget on our backs."

CTU's
24,752 members voted over the course of three days, with a 91 percent
turnout. Overall, 88 percent voted in favor of authorizing a strike.

A
strike can only take place after mediation between teachers and city
officials, so it would not happen before March 2016, Sharkey told the Chicago Tribune on Monday.

His
statement following the vote specifically addressed Chicago Public
Schools chief executive Forrest Claypool as well as Mayor Rahm Emanuel,
who faces a growing call for resignation from grassroots groups demanding racial, social, and economic justice.

"Rahm,
Forrest Claypool—listen to what teachers and educators are trying to
tell you: do not cut the schools anymore, do not make the layoffs that
you have threatened; instead, respect educators and give us the tools we
need to do our jobs," Sharkey said.

As CTU outlined in its statement following the vote, educators' demands are to:

--Improve
the teaching and learning conditions by reducing standardized testing,
eliminate time-sucking compliance paperwork, and restore professional
respect and autonomy to teachers on matters like grades. These
improvements cost nothing;

--Staff our schools at an
adequate level. We deserve reasonable class sizes, instruction in art,
music, science and technology, a library with a librarian, a nurse;

--Help
our schools and our communities address the social crisis in large
swaths of our city. While we do not expect the schools to fix
homelessness, broken immigration policy, crisis-level unemployment, and
racism, we must address the undeniable fact that these problems spill
over into our schools and devastate the lives of our children. We have
modest demands to address these problems—allow our counselors to
counsel, approve restorative justice programs in targeted schools, help
with translation and bilingual services.

The contracts reached
during the 2012 strike, which saw Chicago public schools come to a halt
for a full week before city officials met teachers' demands, expired in
June. More recent negotiations stalled over disputes about salaries,
teacher evaluations, and standardized testing, among other contentious
issues. School administrators have threatened mass layoffs and pay cuts
to address the system's shortfall, which is estimated to hit $1 billion next year.

A
top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a
court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming
from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a
huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban
captivity.The decision by Gen. Robert B. Abrams, head of Army Forces
Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., means that Sergeant Bergdahl, 29, faces a
possible life sentence. That is a far more serious penalty than had been
recommended by the Army’s investigating officer, who testified at the
sergeant’s preliminary hearing in September that prison would be
“inappropriate.”According to Sergeant Bergdahl’s defense lawyers, the
Army lawyer who presided over the preliminary hearing also recommended
that he face neither jail time nor a punitive discharge
and that he go before an intermediate tribunal known as a “special
court-martial,” where the most severe penalty possible would be a year
of confinement.Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means
that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if
ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as
potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior
before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who
were sent to search for him after he disappeared.

Sergeant
Bergdahl has been the focus of attacks by Republicans in Congress and on
the presidential campaign, and it is far from clear that General
Abrams’s decision will temper their criticisms.

Donald J. Trump,
for one, has called the sergeant a “traitor” who should be executed,
while Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the
Armed Services Committee, has vowed to hold hearings if the sergeant is
not punished.

Last week, House Republicans issued a report
portraying as reckless and illegal Mr. Obama’s decision in May 2014 to
swap Sergeant Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The
Army did not elaborate on Monday’s decision by General Abrams, or on
why he decided that Sergeant Bergdahl should face the potential for a
far more serious punishment than what the two independent Army
fact-finders had recommended. A spokesman for Army Forces Command at
Fort Bragg noted in an email that recommendations made by preliminary
hearing officers “are advisory in nature.”

No date has been set
for Sergeant Bergdahl’s next court hearing, which will be held at Fort
Bragg, the Army said. He is currently assigned to the Army’s Joint Base
San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, the site of his preliminary hearing in
September.

In a terse statement after the decision, Sergeant
Bergdahl’s chief defense lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, said that General
Abrams “did not follow the advice of the preliminary hearing officer who
heard the witnesses,” and added that he “had hoped the case would not
go in this direction.”

He also criticized some politicians who have spoken out on the case, saying they have inflamed opinions against the sergeant.

“We
again ask that Donald Trump cease his prejudicial monthslong campaign
of defamation against our client,” Mr. Fidell said in a statement. “We
also ask that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees avoid any
further statements or actions that prejudice our client’s right to a
fair trial.”

Mr. McCain’s office declined to comment on Monday.

General
Abrams’s decision came just days after Sergeant Bergdahl was heard for
the first time publicly explaining why he left his base, in taped
interviews that were broadcast by the podcast “Serial” last week.

In
the interviews, which were recorded by Mark Boal, the screenwriter and
producer, Sergeant Bergdahl said that he realized within 20 minutes of
leaving that he had done “something serious.”

In the interviews,
he told the same story that he had described to the Army’s investigating
officer, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, about why he left the outpost: He
wanted to cause a crisis by hiking to another base 18 miles away that
would allow him to have an audience with a senior Army commander where
he could outline what he felt were serious leadership problems
endangering his unit.

Sergeant Bergdahl told Mr. Boal that during
his hike he had also decided to surveil Taliban fighters emplacing
improvised explosive devices that could be used to kill American
soldiers, and to turn that information over to commanders when he
arrived at the other base. He said that he “was trying to prove to the
world” that he was a top soldier, and that in some sense he even wanted
to emulate someone like Jason Bourne, the spy-movie character.

The
Army Forces Command spokesman said those statements on “Serial” played
no role in General Abrams’s announcement, or its timing.

But
some critics doubted that. Joe Kasper, the chief of staff for
Representative Duncan Hunter of California, a Republican helping lead
congressional efforts to investigate the trade for Sergeant Bergdahl,
said the sergeant’s comments “forced the Army’s hand.”

“When that
podcast hit, whatever sympathy there was for Bergdahl dried up,” Mr.
Kasper said. “He did himself absolutely no favors by
talking.”Republicans have asserted that the swap would embolden the
Taliban to kidnap other Americans and that it was done without the
required notification of Congress. Some Republicans and members of
Sergeant Bergdahl’s unit have also asserted that a half-dozen or more
American troops died searching for him.

But in his testimony,
General Dahl — who was recently promoted from major general to
lieutenant general — said that no troops had died specifically searching
for Sergeant Bergdahl and that no evidence was found to support claims
that he intended to walk to China or India or that he was a Taliban
sympathizer.

At the Texas hearing, an Army prosecutor, Maj.
Margaret Kurz, described a frantic but fruitless search for Sergeant
Bergdahl in the weeks after he disappeared.

“For 45 days,
thousands of soldiers toiled in the heat, dirt, misery and sweat with
almost no rest, little water and little food to find the accused,” Major
Kurz said. “Fatigued and growing disheartened, they search for the
accused knowing he left deliberately.”

The prosecution’s
witnesses included Sergeant Bergdahl’s former platoon leader and company
and battalion commanders, who all recounted the scramble to find the
soldier after he was reported missing early on June 30, 2009.

His former platoon leader, Capt. John Billings, testified about his “utter disbelief that I couldn’t find one of my own men.”

He
and the other commanders said soldiers searched almost nonstop, never
knowing when the ordeal would end, while their underlying mission to
support Afghan security forces fell by the wayside. The manhunt involved
thousands of troops across thousands of square miles.

General
Dahl described Sergeant Bergdahl as a truthful but delusional soldier,
who identified with John Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
He also said that Sergeant Bergdahl’s worries about severe problems in
his unit were unwarranted, but that he found that his concerns were
sincerely held.

Another defense witness, Terrence Russell, who
debriefed Sergeant Bergdahl after his release, testified that the
sergeant had suffered more in captivity than any American since Vietnam,
including beatings with rubber hoses and copper cables, and
uncontrollable diarrhea for more than three years.

The defense
team, led by Mr. Fidell, argued that Sergeant Bergdahl did everything an
American serviceman was supposed to do in captivity, trying to escape
numerous times despite the harsh treatment the attempts brought him, and
never revealing secrets.

As of Nov. 23, an outbreak of E. coli traced to a sample of diced celery and onions sold at Costco had infected 19 people in seven states. Five people had been hospitalized, and two had developed kidney failure. By Dec. 2, Salmonella from nut butter spread had infected people in nine states.

Every
state in the country has been affected, along with Washington, D.C.,
and Puerto Rico, and the outbreaks led to 7,929 illnesses, 1,460
hospitalizations and 66 deaths.

Fruits, vegetable row crops like
lettuce, beef and sprouts were the main sources. But seeded vegetables,
dairy products, chicken, fish, eggs and turkey have all been
contaminated.

Imported foods accounted for only 18 of the
outbreaks, so experts did not blame poor hygiene in foreign countries.
Widespread food-borne outbreaks are being identified more often, partly
because of better surveillance and reporting, and because of the greater
centralization of food processing and distribution practices.

Although
they accounted for disproportionate numbers of serious illness and
deaths, the 120 multi-state outbreaks were in a sense the tip of the
iceberg. Over the five-year period, the C.D.C. reported 4,163 cases of
food-borne disease outbreaks, or an average of more than two a day. More
than 71,000 people were sickened, 4,247 were hospitalized, and 118
died.

“These outbreaks are a big problem and our goal is to
prevent them,” said the lead author of the report, Samuel J. Crowe, an
epidemiologist at the C.D.C. “We want to detect quickly, trace the food
back to its source, and learn where the food was contaminated.”

WASHINGTON
— Underlying U.S. inflation pressures rose in November, which could
give the Federal Reserve more confidence to raise interest rates on
Wednesday, even as renewed weakness in gasoline prices kept overall
consumer prices in check.The Labor Department said on Tuesday its
so-called core Consumer Price Index,
which excludes food and energy, gained 0.2 percent last month. It was
the third straight month that the core CPI increased by that margin, and
reflected rising rents, airline fares, new motor vehicles and
healthcare costs.

In the 12 months through November, the core CPI
rose 2.0 percent, the largest gain since May 2014, after rising 1.9
percent in October. The Fed targets 2 percent inflation and it tracks an
index that is running far below the core CPI.

The inflation
report was released as Fed officials prepared to gather for a two-day
policy meeting. The U.S. central bank is expected to lift its benchmark
overnight interest rate from near zero at the end of the meeting on
Wednesday, encouraged by a strengthening labor market.

"This
report should shore up the Fed's confidence in the inflation outlook as
the firming in domestic prices will likely serve as a confidence booster
in their expectation for inflation to move back towards target in a
timely manner," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD
Securities in New York.

There is optimism that tightening labor market conditions, characterized by a jobless rate now in a range that some Fed

officials
view as consistent with full employment, and strong domestic demand
will put upward pressure on wages and drive inflation toward its target.

Inflation
is also seen heading higher in 2016 as the effects of last year's sharp
drop in oil prices fade. The dollar's pace of appreciation is also
expected to slow, which could ease some of the pressure on commodity
prices.

Signs of firming inflation pressures and a rebound in
crude oil prices from near 11-year lows weighed on U.S. Treasury debt
prices. The dollar firmed against a basket of currencies and U.S. stocks
were trading higher.

MODERATE PACE

Other data on Tuesday
showed factory activity in New York states contracted for a fifth
straight month in December as the sector continues to reel from dollar
strength and ongoing efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory bloat.

Homebuilder confidence dipped in December, but remained at levels consistent with a gradual housing market recovery.

"Housing market activity continues to improve at a moderate pace," said Jesse Hurwitz, an economist at Barclays in New York.

Last
month's increase in the core CPI was offset by falling gasoline prices,
leaving the overall CPI unchanged after a 0.2 percent increase in
October. But in the 12 months through November, the CPI increased 0.5
percent, the largest gain since last December.

Within
the core CPI, rents increased 0.2 percent after rising 0.3 percent in
October. They were up 3.6 percent in the 12 months through November,
reflecting rising demand for rental accommodation as more Americans shun
home ownership.

Healthcare costs increased broadly, with doctor
visits rising 1.1 percent. Apparel prices fell for a third straight
month, while airline fares increased 1.2 percent. There were also
increases in the cost of tobacco, education, communication and motor
vehicle insurance.

"We think that the underlying strength of the
domestic economy will continue to allow inflation rates to grind
higher," said Harm Bandholz, chief economist at UniCredit Research in
New York.

The mother of a young black man shot dead by the San Francisco police
filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Friday, saying officers needlessly
opened fire in a shooting captured on video.
Five San Francisco police officers responding to a report of a stabbing
killed Mario Woods, 26, on Dec. 2 when he refused commands to drop an
eight-inch knife. Two video clips of the episode have circulated online,
angering community leaders and activists. During community meetings
this week, some have called for Chief Greg Suhr to resign and for the
officers who fired their guns to be charged criminally. Mr. Suhr has
said that the police opened fire when it appeared that Mr. Woods was
raising the knife and approaching one of the officers. John Burris, a
lawyer representing Gwendolyn Woods, the mother, disputed that account
Friday and showed a video clip not previously seen publicly. He said Mr. Woods never raised his hands.

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10) Thousands March in South Africa to Call for President’s Resignation

JOHANNESBURG — Thousands of people marched in major cities across South Africa on Wednesday to demand the resignation of President Jacob Zuma after an important government appointment last week that raised concerns about his handling of the nation’s economy.

Protesters in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and elsewhere have called on the governing African National Congress
to recall Mr. Zuma, whose tenure as president has been marred by a
series of scandals and accusations of pervasive corruption, but the
party has stood by him so far.

Last week, Mr. Zuma surprised even
members of his own cabinet by abruptly firing Nhlanhla Nene, his
well-respected finance minister, who had clashed with the chairwoman of
the state-owned South African Airways, Dudu Myeni, who is a close ally
of Mr. Zuma’s.

Mr. Zuma named David van Rooyen, a low-profile
lawmaker with no experience in government finance, as Mr. Nene’s
successor. But only days later he was forced to replace Mr. van Rooyen
with Pravin Gordhan, a former finance minister, after investors
expressed grave concern about the independence of South Africa’s
treasury and the country’s currency, the rand, dropped sharply.

Zwelinzima
Vavi, the former leader of Cosatu, the powerful trade union federation,
and a former ally of Mr. Zuma’s, called on the president to step down.

“We
are refusing to be reconciled with the eating away of the moral fiber
of our society by a small elite that has managed to intimidate so many
South Africans with their corruption,” Mr. Vavi said.

On
Wednesday, Moody’s became the latest credit ratings agency to lower its
outlook on South Africa’s debt, to negative from stable.

Moody’s
cited slow growth in the country, which has been hurt by falling prices
of its main commodities, and pressure to increase public spending before
elections in metropolitan areas next year, with “the potential for
losses of several important cities.”

Political analysts say that
officials in the A.N.C., which has governed since the end of apartheid
in 1994 and controls eight of the country’s nine provinces, could
reconsider their support of Mr. Zuma if the party incurs major losses in
the metropolitan elections.

Poor blacks make up a majority of
the population of South Africa and constitute the bedrock of the
A.N.C.’s support, but they appeared underrepresented in the marches on
Wednesday. White South Africans represented a large majority of marchers
in Cape Town, and their presence in other demonstrations was
significant enough to elicit running commentary on social media.

“We’re
not happy with Zuma’s leadership — corruption, no accountability,” said
Lumkile Sizila, 41, a black man who was marching in Cape Town and who
said he used to support the A.N.C. “We want a stable president who
consults widely.”

Asked about the low turnout of black marchers,
Mr. Sizila added, “I support this event, but we need black people, who
vote for the A.N.C., at the forefront.”

The authorities have found what they believe are at least 19 bodies
tossed into a deep, narrow canyon in the violence-plagued southern state
of Guerrero, two Mexican officials said Tuesday. The federal officials
said eight of the bodies had been partly burned, and two more were found
in pieces. The officials said the authorities received an anonymous tip
late last week that led to investigators’ discovery of the bodies last
week near the town of Chichihualco. The location and time frame would
suggest the bodies were not those of 43 radical students who disappeared
in Guerrero State in September 2014. The bodies found in the canyon
appeared to have been dumped — not buried — between a month and 18
months ago, officials said.

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12) Physicists in Europe Find Tantalizing Hints of a Mysterious New Particle

One
possibility, out of a gaggle of wild and not-so-wild ideas springing to
life as the day went on, is that the particle — assuming it is real —
is a heavier version of the Higgs boson,
a particle that explains why other particles have mass. Another is that
it is a graviton, the supposed quantum carrier of gravity, whose
discovery could imply the existence of extra dimensions of space-time.

At the end of a long chain of “ifs” could be a revolution, the first clues to a theory of nature that goes beyond the so-called Standard Model,
which has ruled physics for the last quarter-century.It is, however,
far too soon to shout “whale ahoy,” physicists both inside and outside CERN
said, noting that the history of particle physics is rife with
statistical flukes and anomalies that disappeared when more data was
compiled.

A coincidence is the most probable explanation for the
surprising bumps in data from the collider, physicists from the
experiments cautioned, saying that a lot more data was needed and would
in fact soon be available.

“I don’t think there is anyone around
who thinks this is conclusive,” said Kyle Cranmer, a physicist from New
York University who works on one of the CERN teams, known as Atlas. “But
it would be huge if true,” he said, noting that many theorists had put
their other work aside to study the new result.

When all the
statistical effects are taken into consideration, Dr. Cranmer said, the
bump in the Atlas data had about a 1-in-93 chance of being a fluke — far
stronger than the 1-in-3.5-million odds of mere chance, known as
five-sigma, considered the gold standard for a discovery. That might not
be enough to bother presenting in a talk except for the fact that the
competing CERN team, named C.M.S., found a bump in the same place.

ALBANY
— Of all the punishments meted out upon prisoners in solitary
confinement, the most unsavory may well be a misshapen one-pound brick
of cuisine.It goes by various names — Nutraloaf and Disciplinary Loaf,
among them — and the ingredients can vary. Pennsylvania prison chefs
invented a chickpea version, while Illinois included ground beef and applesauce in its court-contested recipe, as well as other ingredients that do not usually go together.

The
version in New York State prisons used a motley assortment of baking
staples and hard-to-overcook vegetables, including shredded carrots and
unskinned potatoes. It was served with little more than water, to choke
it down, and cabbage as a side.

But under an agreement announced on Wednesday,
the loaf’s long reign as the worst food in the worst corners of New
York prisons came to an end, a symbolic victory for inmate advocates and
state officials seeking more humane, and more appetizing, treatment for
prisoners.

The
menu modification is just one of a raft of changes to solitary
confinement policy announced by the Cuomo administration and applauded
by supporters of prisoners’ legal and human rights, including improved
living conditions and restrictions on the length of stays in small,
isolated cells. “I view it as a tremendous step forward,” Karen Murtagh,
director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, said of Wednesday’s
announcement.

But experts say no change may have a more immediate
impact on prisoners’ moods, and on those of the officers assigned to
keep them behind bars, than the end of the so-called
disciplinary-sanctioned restricted diet.

“Food is very important
to prisoners in a deprived and harsh environment; it is one of the very
few things they have to look forward to,” said David C. Fathi, director
of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project. “And when
you mess with prisoners’ food that leads to unhappy prisoners, which
leads to management problems.”

But some former prisoners who were punished with such meals chose to go hungry rather than eat the loaf.

“I
would taste it and just throw it away,” said George Ba Ba Eng, 67, who
served 36 years for murder and several stints in Special Housing Units,
as solitary confinement is formally known. “You’d rather be without food
than eat that.”

Ms. Murtagh called the loaf “a disgusting, torturous form of punishment that should have been banned a century ago.”

“Most
people are appalled at using food as punishment,” she said, adding that
many people believe “such behavior went out with the stocks, whips and
shackling to the wall.”

The inglorious gastronomical history of
the loaf dates back decades, and legal challenges to it and other prison
food have percolated through the courts for years. In a 1978 Supreme
Court case, Hutto v. Finney,
a group of Arkansas prisoners successfully sued over their conditions,
including an exotic dish called “grue,” a square substance made by
mashing together meat, potatoes, syrup, vegetables, eggs and margarine,
and then hard-baking it in a pan. (The court found the “grue diet” had
caused many prisoners to lose weight, perhaps because they did not want
to eat something called “grue.”)

For its part, New York’s recipe —
baked at each prison that so punished inmates — was simple, vegetarian
and often industrial scaled: two types of flour (whole wheat and
all-purpose), two types of milk (1 percent and dried), yeast, salt,
potatoes, carrots, margarine and a big scoop of sugar (presumably to
counteract the intense blandness of the other ingredients).

Indeed, for those who have tasted the loaf, cleansing the palate can be tough.

“It’s like dense, heavy, not bread, but something akin to bread but with no leavening,” said Jean Casella, a co-director of Solitary Watch,
a watchdog group on solitary confinement, who tried the loaf and was
surprised how sugary it was. “It’s something that would sit in your
stomach like a rock. I ate a tiny piece of it, and wouldn’t want to go
any further than that.”

Reserved for prisoners in solitary
confinement who have already lost their other privileges, the loaf was
often used to punish those who had engaged in toddlerlike behavior —
throwing food, for example, or perhaps less pleasant, bodily waste.
Refusing to obey orders from corrections officers during mealtime could
also result in loaf lunches (and breakfasts and dinners, too) for up to
14 days.

In recent years, the state drastically reduced the number of prisoners subjected to the restricted diet, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision,
which also noted the loaf and cabbage prix fixe had still provided “all
the appropriate nutrients required in an inmate’s diet,” and about
3,000 calories a day. The state made dietary exceptions for Passover, and Jewish inmates were given kosher loaves baked at Green Haven Correctional Facility.

The
meal that is replacing the loaf is hardly luxurious, but it does
include a piece of fresh fruit, two slices of American cheese, two
hard-boiled eggs and four slices of bread for breakfast. The lunch and
dinner menu adds two slices of lunch meat and coleslaw in place of the
eggs. (No substitutions allowed.)

New York’s decision to dump the
loaf comes as such dietary sanctions have been on the wane nationwide,
said Laurie Maurino, president of the Association of Correctional Food Service Affiliates.
Ms. Maurino, a registered dietitian who oversees the prison feeding for
the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, says her
state no longer uses the loaves, though some county jails do.

After
all, forcing inmates to eat the loaf could amount to a constitutional
violation, Ms. Maurino added. “It is considered,” she said, “cruel and
unusual punishment.”

hen Will Allen is asked to name the most beautiful part of his Vermont farm,
he doesn’t talk about the verdant, rolling hills or easy access to the
Connecticut River. Though the space is a picturesque postcard of the
agrarian idyll, Allen points down, to the dirt. “This precious resource
not only grows food,” he says, “but is one of the best methods we have
for sequestering carbon.”

We think of climate change as a
consequence of burning fossil fuels. But a third of the carbon in the
atmosphere today used to be in the soil, and modern farming is largely
to blame. Practices such as the overuse of chemicals, excessive tilling
and the use of heavy machinery disturb the soil’s organic matter,
exposing carbon molecules to the air, where they combine with oxygen to
create carbon dioxide. Put another way: Human activity has turned the
living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic atmospheric
gas.

It’s possible to halt and even reverse this process through
better agricultural policies and practices. Unfortunately, the world
leaders who gathered in Paris
this past week have paid little attention to the critical links between
climate change and agriculture. That’s a huge mistake and a missed
opportunity. Our unsustainable farming methods are a central contributor
to greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change, quite simply, cannot be
halted without fixing agriculture.

The industrialization of
farming has allowed farmers to grow more crops more quickly. But modern
techniques have also wreaked havoc on the earth, water and atmosphere.
Intense plowing, for example, has introduced more oxygen into the soil,
boosting the microbes that convert organic matter into carbon dioxide.
The quest to wring every last dollar out of fields has put pressure on
farmers to rely on chemical fertilizers. This often leaves fields more
bare between growing seasons, allowing carbon to escape into the air.
Scientists estimate that cultivated soil has lost 50 to 70 percent of its carbon, speeding up climate change.

That
loss has significantly degraded soil health, reducing our ability to
grow food. Median crop yields are likely to decline by about 2 percent per decade through 2100,
according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At the
same time, the world’s population is projected to jump from 7 billion
to 9 billion by 2050.

Water availability is also at risk. Currently, 1.6 billion people
live in regions facing severe water scarcity; that number is expected
to rise to 2.8 billion by 2025. Agriculture accounts for a whopping 70 percent
of all water consumption. That’s in large part because degraded soil
doesn’t absorb water efficiently. Instead, water sits on top of the
ground and runs off (along with farm chemicals) into nearby waterways,
creating toxic nitrogen “dead zones.”

Remarkably, though,
restoring carbon to the soil is not nearly as complicated as rethinking
our transportation systems or replacing coal with renewable energy.
Innovative farmers such as Allen already know the recipe.

He and
his team place “cover crops” in their fields, planting things like
oats, rye and beans between rows of vegetables. This practice keeps
carbon, nitrogen and other organic nutrients in the soil. “Keeping as
much ground covered with plants as long as possible allows
photosynthesis to draw down atmospheric carbon into soils,” Allen says. A
bare field, in contrast, represents a waste of photosynthetic
potential. Allen also composts, limits plowing and avoids synthetic
chemicals like nitrogen fertilizers. In combination, these efforts have
increased soil organic matter by 3 to 4 percent in just three years.
Allen also sells some of his cover crops, adding farm income.

Allen’s results are not unusual. Studies have shown
that cover cropping, crop rotation and no-till farming could restore
global soil health while significantly decreasing farms’ carbon
footprint. Some scientists project that 75 to 100 parts per million of
CO2 could be drawn out of the atmosphere over the next century if
existing farms, pastures and forestry systems were managed to maximize
carbon sequestration. That’s significant when you consider that CO2
levels passed 400 ppm this spring. Scientists agree that the safe level
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 ppm.

Regenerative
farming would also increase the fertility of the land, making it more
productive and better able to absorb and hold water, a critical function
especially in times of climate-related floods and droughts. Carbon-rich
fields require less synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and generate more
productive crops, cutting farmer expenses.

So why aren’t we
instituting policies to encourage this kind of “carbon farming”? For one
thing, the science is new and not yet widely disseminated.
Additionally, most of the incentives built into America’s agricultural
policies are based on maximizing yield, often at the expense of soil
health.

Current federal policy, for example, limits the growing
season for cover crops on the theory that they waste farmers’ time and
resources on products that can’t be sold. Thus, farmers are denied full
crop insurance, price supports and subsidies if they grow cover crops
beyond a specified period of time. But viewing cover crops as a benefit
instead of an impediment to cash crops would be the kind of
climate-smart policy we need. And, as farmers such as Allen have
learned, some cover crops can also be commercialized.

Giving
farmers incentives to switch from synthetic nitrogen fertilizers to
organic fertilizers could also lead to healthier soil. Scientists at the
University of California at Berkeley working with Marin County ranchers
have found that applying a single layer of compost, less than an inch
thick, to rangelands stimulates a burst of microbial and plant growth
that sequesters dramatic amounts of carbon in the soil — more than 1.5
tons per acre. And research has shown that this happens not just once,
but year after year. This is a win-win strategy, both for the climate
and the food system, since the additional carbon in the soil means more
grass for cattle and more profit for ranchers. If the practice were
replicated on half the rangeland area of California, it would sequester
enough carbon to offset 42 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.

The
possibilities are endless. What if our farmers received federal
subsidies not just for bushels per acre, but for carbon sequestered or
acres of cover crops planted? Many such changes could be made tomorrow
at the agency level; they would not require congressional action.
Incentives for carbon farming could also bridge the political chasm
between ranchers, farmers and environmentalists. Even those farmers and
ranchers who don’t believe in climate change desire healthy soil, high
productivity and lush grasslands. There is a rich opportunity here to
completely realign the politics of agricultural and environmental
policy.

America is not there quite yet, but other countries are pointing the way. This year, the French government launched the 4 Per 1000 initiative,
the first international effort to restore carbon to the soil. Under the
proposal, nations would commit to increasing the carbon in their
cultivated lands by 0.4 percent per year. The French calculate that this
would halt the annual increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Some
emerging soil science estimates that we could store 50 to 75 percent of
current global carbon emissions in the soil.

In the United
States, when the Dust Bowl crisis of the 1930s literally blew soil
across the country, our government responded by implementing agriculture
policies to ameliorate the problem. With the stakes even higher today,
our politicians can once again enact policies to reward practices that
rebuild soil carbon.

CHICAGO
— The gunshots blasted on and on, 45 in all, until Calvin Cross lay
dead in a vacant lot. Mr. Cross, 19, had run away after three Chicago
police officers pulled alongside him on a South Side street near his
house. Bullets hit his chest, arm, back, face and the little finger on
his right hand.The officers, who fired four weapons including an assault
rifle that night in May 2011, said that Mr. Cross had fired at them.
Investigators found an old revolver several hundred feet from Mr.
Cross’s path. But tests later showed definitively that the gun was
inoperable and did not have Mr. Cross’s fingerprints.

Among the
officers, part of a special unit that some have accused of aggressive
stops and illegal searches and that has since been disbanded, there have
been 17 complaints over the years, but none led to discipline. The
three were cleared of wrongdoing in Mr. Cross’s death, too, and returned
to duty.Nevertheless, the city this year paid Mr. Cross’s family $2
million after relatives filed a wrongful-death suit. Photo

Mr. Cross, 19, was killed in 2011.

“One
officer reloaded and another one shot at him with two different guns,”
Dana Cross said of her son’s shooting, which she heard from inside her
house. “I want to know why those officers are still working.”

The release last month of a 2014 video
showing a Chicago police officer fatally shooting another teenager,
Laquan McDonald, has upended this city. The police superintendent, Garry F. McCarthy, was forced out
despite a reduction in crime citywide. So was the leader of an
authority charged with disciplining officers. The Justice Department has
opened an investigation into possible civil rights abuses by the Police Department. Demonstrators call nearly every day for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign.

But
the Chicago Police Department’s record of brutality began long before
Mr. McDonald, 17, lay crumpled on Pulaski Road. For decades — back to
violent clashes at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and the confessions coerced by a “midnight crew” of detectives accused
of using suffocation, electric shock and Russian roulette on black men
in the 1970s and 1980s — the Chicago police have wrestled with
allegations of torture, racism, weak oversight and a code of silence.

“There
is a problem in the city of Chicago when an officer who was sworn to
serve and protect can gun down a citizen for no other reason than that
he was black,” the Rev. Marvin Hunter, who was Mr. McDonald’s
great-uncle, said last week at his church on the West Side. “Laquan
McDonald represents thousands of Laquan McDonalds — same black skin,
same poverty, same social and economic injustice that is put upon them,
but with different names and different ages.”

In Chicago, the
nation’s third-largest city, officers shot and killed 70 people, most of
them black, in a five-year span ending in 2014. That was the most among
the nation’s 10 largest cities during the same period, according to the
Better Government Association, a nonprofit watchdog organization.

The
Chicago Police Department has also been known for issuing little or no
punishment to its own, even after a 2007 overhaul of its discipline
system that was portrayed as creating a tough, autonomous authority.

Yet under that new system, the vast majority of complaints against the police still do not result in discipline. Of more than 400 police shootings since the Independent Police Review Authority
was created in 2007, the agency has found claims of wrongdoing against
officers valid in only two cases. The authority issues only
recommendations for discipline. The police superintendent and the Police
Board have the last word in the most egregious cases.

All the
while, the city, which is in the middle of a fiscal crisis, has spent
more than $500 million settling police cases since 2004.

In
defending the department, a police union official said that the police
seemed to have become “the new doormat” for a city that has witnessed
surges of bloodshed as gangs have splintered and guns proliferated.

Dean Angelo Sr., president of the union representing Chicago’s rank-and-file officers,
said that officers took thousands of guns off Chicago’s streets each
year. That there have not been more shootings, he said, indicates that
officers are showing restraint. This year, the Chicago police have
seized 6,714 illegal guns as of Monday, more than in the same period
last year.

“That is good policing,” Mr. Angelo said. “But nobody
looks at it that way.” He added: “The same politicians that are throwing
us under the bus were banging our door down to get our endorsement when
they were running for office.”

Mr. Emanuel has apologized for
Mr. McDonald’s death and appointed a task force to re-examine the force,
the city’s oversight of officers and its practice of keeping evidence
secret during investigations. “We need a painful but honest reckoning of
what went wrong, not just in this one instance but over decades,” Mr.
Emanuel said in an emotional speech last week.

Yet
Craig B. Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School
who has studied the police here and fought to make discipline records
public, said he sensed a “familiar playbook.”

“Heads will roll
and we’ll form a blue-ribbon commission to study the problem,” Mr.
Futterman said. “But after each and every one of these scandals, we’ve
never had the political courage to address the underlying issues, the
very causes of distrust between the black community and the Chicago
police. Police officers here have been allowed to abuse the most
vulnerable Chicago residents with near impunity.”

‘He Was Running Away’

Cedrick
Chatman was behind the wheel of Dodge Charger that had been reported
carjacked when two plainclothes officers pulled up beside him one
afternoon at a South Side intersection. They ordered him out at
gunpoint. Mr. Chatman, 17, ran. He was carrying an iPhone box, and the
officer who shot and killed him said he thought the box was a gun.

Lorenzo
Davis, a retired 23-year veteran of the Chicago police, supervised an
investigation into that January 2013 shooting as part of his second
career — scrutinizing excessive force complaints for the Independent
Police Review Authority. The shooting, Mr. Davis concluded, was
unnecessary. “He was running away, so why kill him?” Mr. Davis said in
an interview.

Mr. Davis, a former police commander, told his
supervisors as much in a 2014 report recommending that the officer,
Kevin Fry, be fired. But Mr. Davis said the top echelon of the authority disagreed, ordered him to change his finding and — not long after he refused — fired him. A new report,
written by another investigator, came out this year: The authority said
that the officer followed departmental guidelines when he shot Mr.
Chatman.

Mr. Davis, who has filed a wrongful-termination suit,
said that his superiors had tried to push him to soften his findings in
six cases, including the Chatman shooting, and that the authority had
failed to live up to the very reason it was created: independence.

“It
goes wrong because there’s a culture there where the investigators and
supervisors for the most part feel that police officers always tell the
truth and that quite often the complainants embellish or do not tell the
truth,” Mr. Davis said.

A spokesman for the authority declined
to comment on Mr. Davis’s claims or the Chatman case, citing continuing
litigation. Scott Ando, the authority’s chief administrator, whose
dismissal was announced by Mr. Emanuel this month, denied suggestions
that he had protected the police.

“I did my job fairly and objectively at all times,” Mr. Ando said in an interview.

The
Chicago Police Department is the nation’s second-largest city force,
with an annual budget of about $1.3 billion and about 12,000 officers.
While the city’s population is split almost evenly among black, white
and Hispanic residents, more than half of the officers are white, about
22 percent are black and 22 percent Hispanic, police officials said.

For
years, claims of police brutality were handled by the Office of
Professional Standards, an internal unit that was widely criticized for
its lack of independence.

By 2007, the department was engulfed in scandal over a surveillance video that showed a drunken officer, Anthony Abbate, beating a female bartender,
and allegations that fellow officers covered up for him. That year, Mr.
Emanuel’s predecessor, Mayor Richard M. Daley, announced the creation
of the Independent Police Review Authority — run by civilians and
overseen by the mayor — to replace the Office of Professional Standards.

Now
the new system is accused of being little better than the old. From
2011 to 2015, 97 percent of more than 28,500 citizen complaints resulted
in no officer being punished, according to data
recently released by the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism
organization, and the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of
Chicago Law School. The Police Department and the review authority have
questioned the data, though Mr. Emanuel said last week that the low
rates of disciplinary action “defy credibility.”

The independent
authority’s final report on the Chatman shooting backed the officers’
versions of events: that when they stopped Mr. Chatman, they had reason
to believe he might be armed and might have committed a felony because
of a radio call saying that the vehicle had been carjacked.

As
Mr. Chatman got out of the car, he reached toward the floor, causing one
officer to assume he was grabbing a weapon. As he fled, Officer Fry
said that he saw a dark object in Mr. Chatman’s hand and that he saw him
turning slightly, at which point the officer fired four times, hitting
him twice.

Facing a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Linda
Chatman, his mother, the city obtained a protective order barring
release of surveillance video that captured the shooting. The city had
also fought the release of video in Mr. McDonald’s case for many months,
citing investigations. Ms. Chatman’s lawyer, Brian Coffman, has asked a
federal judge to reconsider and allow the video’s release.

Mr.
Davis, the former authority supervisor, was able to watch those videos
before concluding that the shooting was wrong. He said the images, if
they become public, would back up his view.

“He waited until he had a clear shot and then he took one,” Mr. Davis said of Officer Fry.

On
the night he died, Mr. Cross and a friend, Ryan Cornell, were two
blocks from Mr. Cross’s house when a police cruiser slowed after the
officers saw him “making movements with his hands and body” that
suggested he had a gun, a police report said.

The officers —
Mohammed Ali, Macario Chavez and Matilde Ocampo — were members of the
Mobile Strike Force Unit, assigned with making gun and drug arrests in
high-crime areas, including Mr. Cross’s West Pullman neighborhood.
Officer Chavez, 29, and Officer Ocampo, 35, ordered Mr. Cross and Mr.
Cornell to show their hands, according to the report. Mr. Cornell, who
had been stopped numerous times by the police, complied. But Mr. Cross,
whose mother said her son’s only previous brush with the law was for
violating an 11 p.m. curfew, ran.

“I said, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” Dana Cross said of the moment she heard the shots. “It was so close. It was right around the corner.”

Ms.
Cross said her son had returned home from a Job Corps program in
southern Illinois, where he had earned a certificate for bricklaying,
because he had learned his girlfriend was pregnant with a boy. “He was
real excited about that,” said Ms. Cross, who hated guns so much that
her son was not allowed to play with water pistols.

Two of the
officers said that Mr. Cross fired three shots as he broke into a
sprint. Officer Chavez opened fire with the department-issued assault
rifle he kept strapped to his chest, and Officer Ocampo shot at the
fleeing Mr. Cross with his 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. The
staccato bursts from their weapons sliced into trees and parked cars.

The
officers found Mr. Cross lying among bushes in a vacant lot. When he
moved but failed to show his hands, Officer Chavez fired three more
times with his assault rifle — emptying his clip with shots 26, 27 and
28, the officer said. He then switched to his 9-millimeter Beretta and
fired three more times. Officer Ali also reloaded and fired at Mr. Cross
as he lay prone. In all, they fired 45 times.

The shot that
killed Mr. Cross struck him in the face, between his nose and his right
eye, according to the medical examiner’s report.

A gun found
several hundred feet from Mr. Cross’s path was a fully loaded six-shot
Smith & Wesson revolver that had not been fired and was so full of
dirt that an Illinois State Police lab deemed it inoperable. There were
no fingerprints on the gun, and Mr. Cross’s hands had no gunshot
residue.

Despite those inconsistencies, the Independent Police
Review Authority’s investigation concluded that Mr. Cross was armed. Its
final report found that Mr. Cross’s killing was justified because “the
officers were reasonable in their fear” that Mr. Cross “posed a threat.”

A Tendency to Settle

Eighteen
months after the authority completed its investigation, the city
approved a $2 million payment to the family this year, one of a number
of cases in which the city has settled claims even when officers have
been cleared.

In one such case, the family of Joshua Madison, 21,
an unarmed African-American man killed by a Chicago police officer in
2010, received a $1 million settlement in June. Before the settlement,
the officer involved, Robert Campbell, acknowledged in a deposition that
he had an alcohol problem. Two weeks after the deposition, Mr.
Campbell, 33, committed suicide.

City officials also paid Laquan
McDonald’s family $5 million months before the officer who shot him was
charged with murder and before the rest of Chicago saw the video. The
officer, Jason Van Dyke, has been indicted on six counts of murder and a
count of official misconduct in Mr. McDonald’s death, and was scheduled
to appear in court here Friday.

“The Department of Law has a
responsibility to taxpayers to weigh many factors when proposing to
settle any case,” Bill McCaffrey, a spokesman for the city’s law
department, said. “While this may include the determination of the
Independent Police Review Authority, it will also include how a jury is
likely to react to the evidence, the probability a jury may find against
the city and the financial exposure to taxpayers.”

After Mr.
Cross’s death, the officers who shot him returned to duty. Officer Ali
has since accumulated 11 citizens’ complaints, including for improper
use of force and conducting illegal searches. Officer Chavez, who fired
31 of the 45 shots, has had a total of four complaints, including two
for unnecessary use of force. And Officer Ocampo has had one complaint,
for an illegal search. None of the complaints have led to departmental
discipline.

Ms. Cross, pointing out that Officers Chavez and Ali
had been accused of using unnecessary force two weeks before her son was
killed, said that the department had failed to adequately investigate
and punish officers.

“If the police had taken care of business then,” she said, “my son would still be alive.”

Monica
Davey reported from Chicago, and Timothy Williams from New York. Mitch
Smith and Brent McDonald contributed reporting from Chicago.

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16) New York City to Pay $2.75 Million in Wrongful-Conviction Settlement

New
York City has agreed to pay $2.75 million to settle a
wrongful-conviction lawsuit, the city’s Law Department said on Thursday,
in a case that prompted philosophical questions about the meaning of a
guilty plea.The plaintiff, Michael Poventud, 45, served nine years in
prison before his 1998 conviction — for the attempted murder and
attempted robbery of a Bronx livery driver — was overturned on grounds
that the authorities withheld evidence from his lawyers that could have
helped his defense.

Rather than face a retrial, Mr. Poventud
pleaded guilty in 2006 to attempted robbery in the third degree,
acknowledging that he had been armed and had tried to rob another
person. He received a one-year sentence and was released immediately.

But
Mr. Poventud continued to maintain his innocence, his lawyers said, and
pleaded guilty in order to get out of prison, where he had been
subjected to abuse by other inmates and had twice tried to commit
suicide.

The guilty plea, as it turned out, became a legal hurdle
when Mr. Poventud sued the city and claimed his rights were violated in
the 1998 trial. A judge, Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in
Manhattan, dismissed the suit in 2012, finding that it was barred
because Mr. Poventud had pleaded guilty to conduct that “necessarily
required his presence at the scene of the crime.”

Success in his lawsuit “would logically imply the invalidity” of his guilty plea, Judge Batts wrote.

But
in 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
which typically rules in three-judge panels, overturned Judge Batts’s
decision by a 2-to-1 vote, saying Mr. Poventud could sue.

The
debate did not end there. In an unusual move, the full or “en banc”
appellate court, with 15 judges participating, reviewed the matter, and
last year, a majority of the judges agreed that Mr. Poventud could sue.

“Poventud’s
claims are not the stuff of prison idleness or self-absorption,” the
opinion’s author, Judge Richard C. Wesley, wrote. He “accepted an offer
from the state to plead to a lesser offense; he now seeks to recover
from those who violated his right to a fair trial.”

A judge who
concurred in the ruling, Gerard E. Lynch, wrote in a separate opinion,
“The choice of freedom in exchange for an admission would be easy for a
guilty man, but even an innocent one would be hard-pressed to decline
the prosecution’s offer.”

The conviction of Mr. Poventud, who
once used the first name Marcos, stemmed from the 1997 shooting of
Younis Duopo, a cabdriver. The settlement was noted in papers filed in
court late on Wednesday.

Mr. Poventud, speaking by phone on
Thursday, thanked his lawyers and said, “Nothing can give me back those
years of my life I lost, but I’m happy to put this behind me.”

In
a statement, the Law Department said, “This case raised a novel legal
issue concerning the resolution of the plaintiff’s criminal charges and
its effect on his civil claims.” The department added that in light of
the appellate rulings allowing the suit to go forward, the agreement was
“fair and in the best interest of the city.” The city admitted no
wrongdoing.

One of Mr. Poventud’s lawyers, Julia P. Kuan, said on
Thursday, “We were not challenging the validity of the guilty plea.”
Another of his lawyers, Joel B. Rudin, said, “We had an innocent person
who had pleaded guilty in order to escape more trauma in prison.”